We all have
todo lists of one form or another. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by
our lists and have a hard time making progress against them. One
technique that helps many people is
timeboxing.
With this technique, you take your todo list and assign a specific amount of
time for each item. Somehow, just adding the time element does the trick
to get a person motivated- what was once a scary pile of stuff to get done is
now manageable and easy!

TimeBoxer
is an application that makes timeboxing extremely simple.Just put your todo list into the
application, click “generate” to make a list of progress bars, then click the
play button when you are ready to get started.Timeboxer will generate the times for you (which you can edit) and will
keep track of your time.When a task
is almost done, it will play a little alarm to help you transition to the next
task.It’s simple and fun!

I wrote
timeboxer for myself and I use it every day because it works.I even use it to help me put more
features in TimeBoxer!I hope
that this program also makes you more productive.

Tips for
Using TimeBoxer

Break it up!Lots
of times, we’ll write down a huge monster task like “Clean the Office” and it is
just too big to get started.It really helps to
break down a task into smaller bits.
These small bits work really well in TimeBoxer.For instance, “Clean the Office” Could become:

-Straighten
bookshelf

-Dust off
surfaces

-File Papers

-Take out
trash

With
smaller tasks like this, it is easy to get started and easy to predict if they
will fit in the small time block that TimeBoxer gives it.

Use
Buffer Tasks.Unexpected
things always crop up in the day.To help me with this,
I like to sprinkle in “buffer” tasks to my todo list.These tasks are meaningful, but only
take a few moments. These could be “Take
a short walk”, “stand up for a few minutes”, “Write a thank you note”, “write an
appreciative thought”.
With buffer tasks, I get the double reward of doing something good AND getting
some time back when a task goes awry.

Use
the Pause Button.Once in a
while, things get crazy, or you Aunt Mable calls out of the blue, throwing off
your schedule.That’s why I added the
pause button.It’s not cheating to
use it.Relax and press the pause
button once in a while.It’s OK!

Incremental Timeboxing is motivational. Some people find that gradually
increasing (or gradually decreasing) times for todo tasks is a great way to get
motivated. TimeBoxer starts out with
support for incremental timeboxing, because I find it so useful.I like to start out with really
short task times, because it feels good to start the day by getting a few little
tasks out of the way.I
specifically pick a few tasks that are short and sweet just for this purpose.

What's new

Version 1.5.0.0

Added high score list

Version 1.4.9.0

Added some controls to customize the UI so that the display can be more compact

Added a "tripomenter" with a clear button

Added a Scoring multiplier- +1 for finishing tasks early

General reorganization and cleanup of the UI

Version 1.4.7.0

Added estimated start time for each task

Added a visual cue when paused

Added a Taskometer

Added a tutorial (Only shows up for first time users. If you want to see it, click on “clear”, then close the window and open it up again in a new browser.)

Fixed Bug: Both sounds play when timeout is reached

Fixed Bug: Overall ETA was getting way off on long task lists

Version 1.4.5.0

Added more sounds and sound settings

Big progress bar to show overall progress

Added a "clear" button

Several minor bug fixes and tweaks around usability

Version 1.4.2.0

Generate preserves item state, so you can now insert items on the fly

Fixed bugs in time status. Now shows both original ETA and current ETA

Added help

UI Improvements to color, sound, and usability

Version 1.4.0.0

Improved sound effects. Almost done has been changed to a chime that rings more and more frequently. Finishing early is a different sound from a task expiring

User can edit the time on a particular task

Fixed a bug where time doesn’t pass when computer is asleep (I think- I could not get this bug to repro, but I changed the way the time increment code works, so I think this should always work now.)

Added configurable color themes (part of the new “settings” tab)

Improved the appearance of the progress bar. It now shows how much time you “won” by finishing early, and does a fun little animation when you click the X.

Saves state so that if you close the web browser, it will come back to where you left off.